Friday, May 11, 2007

Conor and I finally visited a popular North Shore destination with our guests. Queen's bath is a large pool carved out of lava rock situated next to the open ocean. The waves seep in and replenish the water, bringing in an assortment of colorful tropical fish. You can swim in the pool or just simply bask in the sun on the lava rock.

Queen's bath is located only a mile from our apartment. In fact, you can actually see it from above if you walk a tenth of a mile on the golf green behind our back patio. Yet, today was our first visit. This is not entirely out of laziness - during the winter, the surf on the North Shore is at its roughest. When the ocean is too wild, it can toss the water in Queen's bath around like a washing machine, making it dangerous. So we've waited until the calm summer months to visit, and there was no better time than with our visitors this week.

The lush path to Queen's bath takes about 10-15 minutes to navigate, and starts about a mile from our apartment.

It looks a little trecherous, but even our pregnant guest didn't have any problems with the hike.Along the way, you're treated to a couple of scenic, small waterfalls along the path.

Eventually, you arrive at the end of the trail and the beginning of the lava rock. It's still another quarter mile or so to go, but the ocean is a nice backdrop.

The troops head out across the lava.The calm summer tide splashes gently against the lava rock for effect.We finally arrive at our destination, and a cool dip is our reward.From the pool, you can see the Hanalei mountains in the background.After the swim, it feels nice to dry off in the sun on the warm lava rock.